What to trade for an address, where to put the ask, how little to collect, and what to send once you have it. Without being the cafe that spams people.
A coffee shop's regulars are most of its business, and almost every shop has no way to reach a single one of them. The register knows what was sold. It does not know who bought it or whether they ever came back.
An email list fixes exactly one thing: it gives you a way to say something to the people who already like you. That is a smaller claim than most marketing makes, and it is the one worth acting on.
Nobody gives a cafe their email address for a newsletter. They will give it for something they want right now.
In a coffee shop the obvious trade is the WiFi password. The customer is already sitting down and already looking for it. Putting the password behind a short form turns a thing you were giving away for free into the start of a relationship, and the customer loses nothing, because they get the password either way.
The second trade is the loyalty card itself, if the card is worth carrying. The two work well together: the WiFi is the reason to start, the card is the reason to come back.
The counter is the worst place to ask for an email address. There is a queue, the customer is deciding what to order, and every second at the register costs the next person in line. Ask there and you will get the address of whoever is least in a hurry.
The table is the right place. A small card on the table, the WiFi behind a code, and the customer fills it in while they wait for the drink they already ordered. Nobody is behind them and nothing is at stake.
The counter still has a job: it is where a customer who is already signed up gets a stamp. Signing up and coming back are different moments and they want different places.
Every field you add costs you addresses. Ask for what you will genuinely use and nothing else.
Not a phone number unless you have a specific use for it, and not an address at all. A field you cannot name a use for is a field that costs you signups and creates something to protect.
The box has to be unticked, and the person has to tick it. Not because a regulator is watching your cafe, but because an address collected without a clear yes is an address that reports you as spam, and enough of those means your email stops arriving for everyone else on the list, including the people who did want it.
Unsubscribe has to work instantly and be easy to find. Somebody leaving quietly is worth far more than somebody trapped and annoyed.
Not a newsletter. Almost nobody wants a cafe's newsletter.
Send the things that are actually about them: their card filling up, their reward being ready, a note when they have not been in for a while, something on their birthday. Those land because they are true and specific.
Then one thing a month that is about the shop, in the owner's voice. A new roast, a change to the hours, a reason to come in on a slow Tuesday. One is plenty. The shops that send weekly are the shops whose emails stop being opened.
Whatever you use to collect it, make sure of one thing: you can export the whole list, at any time, in a normal file. A list you cannot take with you is not an asset, it is a hostage. This is the single question worth asking any provider before you start, and the answer should take them one sentence.
Trade the WiFi password for one. The customer is already sitting down and already wants the password, so the exchange makes sense to both sides and costs them nothing. Put the ask on the table rather than at the counter, where a queue makes every second expensive.
Email and first name, because a name changes how every later email reads. Their usual drink and their birthday month and day if you will genuinely use them. Never a birth year, and no address. Every extra field costs you signups and creates something to protect.
The automatic ones as they happen: the card filling, a reward ready, a note when somebody has not been in for a while, a birthday. Then one thing a month about the shop itself, in the owner's voice. Shops that send weekly are the shops whose emails stop being opened.
The shop should, and it is worth confirming before you start collecting. Ask any provider whether you can export the whole list at any time in a normal file. A list you cannot take with you is not an asset.
We are myReturners. We run the whole thing for independent coffee shops: the signup, the card, the emails and one campaign a month the owner approves. The numbers on this page are the settings we actually ship with, not projections.